Thursday, April 10, 2014

Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be some kind of hero.But when your whole life gets swept up by a tornado—taking you with it—you have no choice but to go along, you know?Sure, I've read the books. I've seen the movies. I know the song about the rainbow and the happy little blue birds. But I never expected Oz to look like this. To be a place where Good Witches can't be trusted, Wicked Witches may just be the good guys, and winged monkeys can be executed for acts of rebellion. There's still the yellow brick road, though—but even that's crumbling.What happened?Dorothy. They say she found a way to come back to Oz. They say she seized power and the power went to her head. And now no one is safe.My name is Amy Gumm—and I'm the other girl from Kansas.I've been recruited by the Revolutionary Order of the Wicked.I've been trained to fight.And I have a mission:Remove the Tin Woodman's heart.Steal the Scarecrow's brain.Take the Lion's courage.Then and only then—Dorothy must die

I waited for Dorothy Must Die to come out for seems like
forever! Wizard of Oz retelling? YES PLEASE!

The back cover is brilliant, it talks about all these
awesome things the MC must do to free Oz, like take the Lion’s courage and steal
the Tin Man’s Heart., you know before DOROTHY MUST DIE!

Now the writing in this book was really great, I could totally
get behind the MC and loved her character. She was interesting and realistic
and the best part there was basically NO ROMANCE in the whole damn novel.

Oz was awesome, we get to see a TON of familiar characters
(well familiar if you actually READ some of the Oz books, which I have) as well
as some new ones.

Oz is dingier and darker than what the MC expects because
Dorothy is sucking all the life and magic out of it, she has become addicted to
magic and a horrible dictator. Everything in Oz is just off, darker and nastier
than it should be, which was a brilliant idea. Though honestly in the books Oz
had some dark places to begin with so this played well with the original concept
of Oz.

The MC struggles through the book to find her place, feeling
like dropping out of the sky and suddenly being declared the savior of all Oz a
bit daunting, as would anyone, so her character development was well thought
out, as were her interactions with magic and the inhabitants of Oz.

However the plot line I felt was deceiving and suffered. The
book jacket makes it seem like the MC will do all these amazing things in ONE
NOVEL. But it is a lie. She only does one of them and it is not until about twenty
pages from the end, in fact the MC is not even told she is going to have to:
Remove the Tin Woodman’s Heart, Steal the Scarecrow’s Brain and Take the Lions
Courage until the end of the novel. So really this is going to be another trilogy
or some shit, which was a bit depressing. The book jacket wasn’t truthful and
this made the novel a bit of a letdown for me. The book was over 400 pages,
everything could have been accomplished in one novel.

I did enjoy this book though and if you love Oz I recommend giving
it a go.